Speaker 1: Kioda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
Speaker 1: a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald. The
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Olympics has seen plenty of sporting highs
Speaker 1: as well as heartbreak for competitors around the world, but
Speaker 1: no competition has sparked more debate and controversy than the
Speaker 1: women's boxing. The inclusion of Algeria's Ahman Khalif and Taiwan's
Speaker 1: Lynn U Ting has sparked a firestorm after they were
Speaker 1: both banned from International Boxing Association competitions last year citing
Speaker 1: negative gender tests. The issue has blown up during the
Speaker 1: Olympics after Italy's Angela Karini called off her match against
Speaker 1: Khalif only after a few seconds, prompting outrage from a
Speaker 1: divert first list of politicians and celebrities, including Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: jk Rowling, Elon Musk, Logan Pohl and our very own
Speaker 1: Winston Peters and Israel Adisania.
Speaker 2: But as new.
Speaker 1: Information has shone light on the complexities of the case,
Speaker 1: it's once again ignited a debate around women in sport,
Speaker 1: with both boxes now guaranteed medals at the Olympics. Today,
Speaker 1: on the front page. We're joined by University of y
Speaker 1: Kato Professor of Sociology in Sport and Gender, Holly Thorpe,
Speaker 1: to discuss the controversy. Holly, from your understanding, has Emman
Speaker 1: Khalif ever identified as male?
Speaker 2: No, from my understanding, she was born female and lived
Speaker 2: her life as a female.
Speaker 1: So what's the controversy here? Why was she banned by
Speaker 1: the International Boxing Association alongside Lynn Uting?
Speaker 2: Opened last year at boxing competition hosted by the International
Speaker 2: Boxing Association. It was hosted in Russia, and my understanding
Speaker 2: is that both Khalif and Uting's gender identity was questioned
Speaker 2: at that event, and it was the IBA president Umar
Speaker 2: Kremlev of Russia who suggested that those two athletes had
Speaker 2: X Y chromosomes, and then they were subsequently disqualified. And
Speaker 2: other sources say that they questioned that they had elevated
Speaker 2: levels of testosterone. But obviously the IBA is not the
Speaker 2: organizing body running boxing in the Olympics and have been
Speaker 2: largely discredited for a number of reasons, not just this,
Speaker 2: a whole lot of issues, but yeah, it was these
Speaker 2: questions about their gender identities were raised last year and
Speaker 2: then have been brought up again with the Olympics.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what can you tell us about the controversies involving
Speaker 1: the IBA. I understand it's not even running the boxing
Speaker 1: at the Olympics anymore.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is correct.
Speaker 2: They lost their permission to be the world governing body
Speaker 2: of boxing. My understanding that was for issues relating to transparency,
Speaker 2: the culture of that organization, number of kind of ethical concerns.
Speaker 2: So yeah, their permission was taken away from the IOC.
Speaker 2: So that's why the IOC set up a separate sort
Speaker 2: of unit to run boxing at the Paris Olympics.
Speaker 1: Could you give us some background on sex testing? I mean,
Speaker 1: what even is it?
Speaker 3: For a start, Yeah, it's evolved over the years.
Speaker 2: So in nineteen sixty eight, many sportswomen who wanted to
Speaker 2: compete in the Olympics had to undergo sex testing, which
Speaker 2: was basically rather humiliating tests to prove their sex identities.
Speaker 2: In the early days, this was visual examination of their
Speaker 2: genitals in front of doctors and other medical experts. So
Speaker 2: over time this evolved to being blood tests documenting hormone
Speaker 2: levels or chromosome testing. Men never had to do these tests.
Speaker 2: The assumption underplaying this was if you're a woman and
Speaker 2: you're really good at sport, you could perhaps be a
Speaker 2: man masquerading as a female. So you know, these tests
Speaker 2: were always with that kind of assumption.
Speaker 4: Should make this absolutely clear for everyone. This is not
Speaker 4: a transgender issue. I know you know that, but I
Speaker 4: think there has been some misreporting on this, and I
Speaker 4: think it's very very important to say that this is
Speaker 4: not a transgender issue. Many women can have testosterone which
Speaker 4: is in what would be called male levels and still
Speaker 4: be women and still compete as women. So this idea
Speaker 4: that suddenly you do one test for a testosterone and
Speaker 4: that's also everything else not the case, I'm afraid.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there's been various versions of these tests, but
Speaker 2: they've been heavily critiqued over the years for their accuracy
Speaker 2: and recognizing that, you know, it's not just testosterone that
Speaker 2: has an impact on people's performance, and recognizing that sporting
Speaker 2: performance and gender are way more complex than just hormones. So,
Speaker 2: after many years of critique, the IOCs stopped using those
Speaker 2: sex testing or gender verification in nineteen ninety nine and
Speaker 2: engage in a big process of trying to develop a
Speaker 2: new set of guidelines in terms of gender identity and
Speaker 2: participating in the Olympics, which really prioritizes basic human rights
Speaker 2: of privacy and inclusion and participation. And I really think
Speaker 2: this is where the big issue is, whether it's this
Speaker 2: case other cases that kind of blow up and we
Speaker 2: have a whole media debacle and lots of public interest,
Speaker 2: and I think it's the shift from sport historically a
Speaker 2: separated men and woman, and the sex testing was very
Speaker 2: much based on biological, physiological understandings of sex. But what
Speaker 2: the IOC is moving towards is thinking about gender, which
Speaker 2: is way more complex, right, social psychological, how people identify
Speaker 2: as much more fluid in our societies today, and the iOS.
Speaker 3: Is trying to move in that direction.
Speaker 2: But so many people and so many organizations are still
Speaker 2: very stuck in sport as being divided by sexes.
Speaker 3: So it's a really.
Speaker 2: Interesting moment of change, I think, and that's where we're
Speaker 2: having a lot of debate and debate within these organizations, right,
Speaker 2: debate between the IOC and the International Boxing Association. There's
Speaker 2: a lot of organizations that are stumbling around and trying
Speaker 2: to figure out the best way forward.
Speaker 1: This incident has put the spotlight on those with differences
Speaker 1: in sex development. People may remember the case of Castor Semenya,
Speaker 1: the South African runner who essentially was banned from competing
Speaker 1: in sport as you had higher levels of testosterone.
Speaker 5: Here you are, you are eighteen years of age and
Speaker 5: then you are asked if you're not women enough. Yeah,
Speaker 5: regardless of the defenses that you have in your body.
Speaker 5: But I think for me, what I had to turn around,
Speaker 5: just like the humiliation, you know, is justice and people
Speaker 5: treating me with no respect for me. I had to
Speaker 5: just carry myself and knowing what I stand for.
Speaker 1: Are there some cisgender women who just naturally have higher testosterone?
Speaker 2: Yes, well, you know, our hormones fluctuate during different stages
Speaker 2: of our lives. Some men have more, some men have
Speaker 2: less testosterone. Many women have testosterone to varying extents. So
Speaker 2: that's why testing just based on testosterone is really problematic.
Speaker 2: You know, we don't know the full case of caliph
Speaker 2: or uting. I think it's got really muddied the whole
Speaker 2: kind of storyline with how the IBA dealt with this.
Speaker 2: But the important thing is that the IOC International Olympic
Speaker 2: Committee for women to compete in the boxing at the Olympics,
Speaker 2: all they need to prove is their gender identity in
Speaker 2: their passport. They don't need to do a blood test,
Speaker 2: they don't need to prove.
Speaker 3: Their hormones or chromosomes.
Speaker 2: It is their gender identities and their passports and that
Speaker 2: is all the IOC requires. So whether they are into
Speaker 2: sex or not, whether they have X Y chromosomes or not,
Speaker 2: that's really not up into the debate because they are
Speaker 2: participating fully legally, following all the rules and regulations set
Speaker 2: out by the International imp Committee.
Speaker 1: The misinformation and cruelty directed towards these two boxes, these
Speaker 1: two women has been immense They've been mis gendered and
Speaker 1: labeled men. Piers Morgan tweeted a photo of Khalif and said,
Speaker 1: if this is a biological female, I'm a biological ardvark.
Speaker 1: For example. Is this anything other than just outright discrimination
Speaker 1: coming for a muscular athlete with short hair who doesn't look,
Speaker 1: I suppose like your stereotypical woman.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The abuse was wide ranging, and we definitely had a
Speaker 2: number of very high profile figures from Trump to you know,
Speaker 2: people with huge followings, making very prude and cumulating kind
Speaker 2: of remarks about her gender identity. And I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people kind of looked at the photos and
Speaker 2: made decisions themselves thinking, oh, you know, she's got short hair,
Speaker 2: a strong jawline, and actually genders much more complex than
Speaker 2: what we look like or we have short hair, and
Speaker 2: so I think a lot of people got kind of
Speaker 2: caught out by assuming or making assumptions and yeah, like
Speaker 2: you're saying, Unfortunately, this kind of online abuse was very.
Speaker 3: Widespread and it's harmful.
Speaker 2: This really hurts athletes, but it also hurts the next
Speaker 2: generation of young athletes who you know, can see that
Speaker 2: if you don't perform a particular version of femininity, you
Speaker 2: might get this kind of level of abuse, which is
Speaker 2: very harmful.
Speaker 1: At Tokyo in twenty twenty one, New Zealander Laurel Hubbard
Speaker 1: competed in the weightlifting as a trans woman. Have sporting
Speaker 1: codes progressed in the last three years in addressing trans
Speaker 1: women and those with DSD yes.
Speaker 2: I think I mentioned this before. It's a very uneven landscape.
Speaker 2: So whereas the Internationallympic Committee set out this framework really
Speaker 2: trying to be guided by inclusive understandings of gender, this
Speaker 2: is only a framework. So they're kind of using this
Speaker 2: to encourage other international organizations to follow in their lead,
Speaker 2: but others are not right, and others are doing their
Speaker 2: own thing, like World Athletics is still using testosterone testing
Speaker 2: and it's yeah. I think what we're seeing is some countries,
Speaker 2: some sports organizations really trying to move towards more inclusive
Speaker 2: understandings of gender as it relates to sport, and they're
Speaker 2: drawing upon the research and lots of consultation to do so.
Speaker 3: And then we've got other organizations that.
Speaker 2: Are still basically using pretty archaic methods of sex testing.
Speaker 3: We've seen progress towards more inclusive approaches, and I think
Speaker 3: we're seeing this in the Olympics, But those levels of
Speaker 3: governance in high level sport, you know, the IOC doesn't
Speaker 3: get to actually make the rules.
Speaker 2: Those international sports organizations also can set their own rules
Speaker 2: and regulations, and then how that works alongside the IOC, etc.
Speaker 3: Is where things are getting kind of sticky. Now.
Speaker 1: I should mention that DSD is an acronym for differences
Speaker 1: in sex development. So the NHS says it's a rare
Speaker 1: group of conditions involving genes, hormones, and reproductive organs, including genitals.
Speaker 1: It means a person's sex development is just different to
Speaker 1: most other peoples. I suppose, So when it comes to DSD.
Speaker 1: Do we just need to accept that some people have
Speaker 1: a biological advantage in sport? Say in the same breath
Speaker 1: that Lebron James would easily win a game of one
Speaker 1: on one against a five foot five man.
Speaker 3: Oh, I think you know you're right.
Speaker 2: I mean the bodies that we're born into, whether it's
Speaker 2: our height, whether it's our hand size, whether it's our
Speaker 2: foot size, will give some people biological advantages. And I
Speaker 2: wouldn't say that testosterone or the sex body that we're
Speaker 2: born into is just one part of many aspects that
Speaker 2: make for strong or lesser than performances. But also, if
Speaker 2: you think about performance, it's also the country that you're
Speaker 2: born into, the kinds of funding and support that wraps
Speaker 2: around an athlete. Do you have funding for a good
Speaker 2: coach and good facilities and enough money to be able
Speaker 2: to travel to compete.
Speaker 3: And train elsewhere.
Speaker 2: So there's so many things that come into performance and
Speaker 2: biology is one of them.
Speaker 3: But biologies much more than just sex.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And what I find interesting about this debate as well,
Speaker 1: this is the Olympics, so this is the world's best
Speaker 1: of the best. Algeria is going to send their best
Speaker 1: women's boxer to the Olympics, just like Jamaica sent Usain
Speaker 1: Bolt to the Olympics. Did the likes of Usain Bolt,
Speaker 1: for example, have to undergo any kind of testing other
Speaker 1: than perhaps drug testing to prove why he ran the
Speaker 1: way that he ran.
Speaker 2: My understanding that male athletes have never had to undergo
Speaker 2: gender verification, And you're right. We look at Michael Phelps
Speaker 2: for example. You know, huge feet, tall, big hands. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are biological advantages in swimming, but we're not accusing
Speaker 2: him of any unfair advantage, right, But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 3: These questions are directed at women, powerful strong women who
Speaker 3: challenge particular versions of gender identity.
Speaker 2: But often it's not all women who are targeted by
Speaker 2: these types of questioning. It's often non white athletes, black
Speaker 2: and brown Sportswomen in particular are those who, when they
Speaker 2: are strong, when they are powerful, when they are winning,
Speaker 2: are often questioned about their gender identities and then have
Speaker 2: to undergo, you know, there's pretty horrific kinds of practices
Speaker 2: to prove they are a woman. So I think there's
Speaker 2: a whole lot of not just gendered issues here, but
Speaker 2: also of race that's important to address. I think they're
Speaker 2: going on here in this case as well, But these
Speaker 2: are ethical issues which are always complex.
Speaker 1: Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters tweeted about this case last week,
Speaker 1: saying this is why NZED first fought for gender rules
Speaker 1: in sport to be in our Coalition Agreement for Fairness
Speaker 1: and Safety in Women's Sports, putting aside the fact that
Speaker 1: he too misgendered Khalief. What more needs to be done
Speaker 1: when it comes to trans women in sport Because we've
Speaker 1: got governments banning or restricting children and teams from accessing
Speaker 1: puberty blockers, but then bodies ruling out those who have
Speaker 1: gone through puberty that can't compete. Is there a win
Speaker 1: here at all? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So obviously the case we're talking about here is not
Speaker 2: about transgender athletes. But I know that Sport New Zealand
Speaker 2: over a number of years has been working really hard
Speaker 2: on their transgender guidelines to support sports organizations at the
Speaker 2: community level to how to be more inclusive and respectful
Speaker 2: of people's different gender identities. So there's been a lot
Speaker 2: of work that's gone on there. We've seen over in
Speaker 2: Australia they've been doing that work as well, really prioritizing inclusion,
Speaker 2: recognizing that to participate in sport as a human right,
Speaker 2: both at the community level and all the way up
Speaker 2: to the elite levels. So we're seeing some countries and
Speaker 2: sports organizations doing a lot of work in this space.
Speaker 2: But you're right, it is increasingly politicized and used as
Speaker 2: a political football, unfortunately, and these are real people's lives,
Speaker 2: and I think we need to recognize that for many people,
Speaker 2: particularly transgender people, participating in sport has not been.
Speaker 3: A very positive experience.
Speaker 2: You know, even when we see transgender athletes at the
Speaker 2: Olympic Games, for example, they're not dominating, right, Laurel Hubbard
Speaker 2: didn't win the gold medal. We shouldn't assume to transgender
Speaker 2: athletes go through and annihilate the competition. So there's been
Speaker 2: a lot of that language around using fairness and safety
Speaker 2: to justify these decisions. But raally, a lot of sports
Speaker 2: organizations are moving towards equity and inclusion. So there's a
Speaker 2: lot of movement happening, and unfortunately these topics have been
Speaker 2: heavily politicized.
Speaker 1: How do you feel when you see women's rights activists
Speaker 1: holding signs outside Olympic venues? I mean, as a cisgendered woman,
Speaker 1: myself I don't feel great when I see that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in a way this is a bit
Speaker 2: of a storm and a teacup. You know, what we've
Speaker 2: seen in Paris is supposedly the gender equitable games, right.
Speaker 2: We finally, after many many years, we have fifty percent
Speaker 2: women competing and that is something to celebrate. But there
Speaker 2: are still so many issues facing women's sport in terms
Speaker 2: of making sure that they are safe. We have good
Speaker 2: safeguarding practices against systematic abuse.
Speaker 3: We've seen this in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: We've seen this in the high profile cases like USA
Speaker 2: Gymnastics and Volleyball Australia.
Speaker 6: The Board of Volleyball Australia has issued an apology to
Speaker 6: former players who suffered through an environment to fear, coercive control,
Speaker 6: physical and psychological abuse between nineteen ninety seven and two
Speaker 6: thousand and five, and some were as young fourteen during
Speaker 6: that time.
Speaker 2: So these are the really important issues in terms of
Speaker 2: making sports safe for women. But a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: these topics get a lot of media coverage and I
Speaker 2: think mostly it's a bit of a distraction from these
Speaker 2: real issues, and we don't see some of these groups
Speaker 2: really getting involved and really trying to make sport a
Speaker 2: safe place for women. It's more around these issues of
Speaker 2: gender identity and who does and does not belong where.
Speaker 2: I think that's really a bit of a distraction from
Speaker 2: the real issues in women's sport today.
Speaker 1: Holly, once the dust settles on this controversy, what would
Speaker 1: you hope that people take away from it? And what
Speaker 1: issues should we really be focused on? You mentioned a
Speaker 1: few there when it comes to women in sport.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we need to all of us, and
Speaker 2: perhaps myself at times, to be really careful, you know,
Speaker 2: not to judge a book by its cover, right, not
Speaker 2: to judge a main calief by a photo. Actually, gender
Speaker 2: identities way more complex than what one looks like. And
Speaker 2: when we see that headline or we see that post
Speaker 2: from someone famous, we need to do our own research
Speaker 2: and we need to dig deeper and read more informed
Speaker 2: pieces before we have an opinion and start sharing that
Speaker 2: around and adding to the culture of abuse that these
Speaker 2: athletes are having to face right now. I think here
Speaker 2: we all have a responsibility not to add to the
Speaker 2: hate speech.
Speaker 3: Really take our.
Speaker 2: Time before we judge how someone looks, because gender identity
Speaker 2: is much more complex than that, and it's much more
Speaker 2: Complex and sport as well.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Holly. That's it for this episode
Speaker 1: of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
Speaker 1: stories and extensive news coverage at enzedherld dot co dot z.
Speaker 1: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sells with sound
Speaker 1: engineer Patty Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front
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Speaker 1: tune into Borrow for another look behind the headlines.